“I really enjoyed math and science and working with computers growing up, but I wasn’t exactly confident in choosing engineering as my major in college and ultimately my profession. My parents really encouraged me to pursue a technical degree. They even sent me off to pre-college math and engineering summer enrichment programs during my high school years. They said that there was a shortage of women engineers and therefore the job offers would be plentiful. My senior year in high school I took AP computer science and I was the only girl in my class – I felt inferior to my fellow male students; if it were not for my teacher (who was a woman) I am positive I would have dropped the course by the second week. I did not want to experience this feeling of “less than” or “not as smart as” if I chose to pursue engineering in college.
Despite these feelings, due to the encouragement of my parents and my interests, I did choose to major in engineering. I graduated from college with degrees in both electrical engineering and computer science the year of the dot com bust and thus the jobs were not at all plentiful (like my parents assured me! 😉 ). I took a job with a government agency, where I did not work specifically as an engineer, but my computer science and engineering knowledge were definitely a pre-requisite. From there I went to a small software company seeking a software engineering job and I was steered to business management. I remember the HR representative saying, “I have something that would be a better fit for you.” The role I was hired for was a project scheduling job. After working there a few years, I still wanted a real engineering job. However, by this time I was so far removed from engineering work, I had to accept another role (at a major government defense contractor) within business management with the hopes to eventually move into a more technical position. I worked there for a little over five years, and it was only in my last role that I actually served as a software engineer. And this happened mainly because of my female mentor who was a director in the software engineering department and lobbied for me to get this position.
I never felt comfortable in engineering environments. I was usually the only woman on my team and was constantly subjected to typical male banter. I was also subjected to insensitive remarks and there was one instance where my boss was reprimanded for what he said to me. However, the backlash was immediate. I went from being rated “exceeds expectations” to the lower rating of “meets expectations” on my next performance review. While he tried to articulate what had changed in my performance, I still believe the lower rating was a direct result of the “sexual harassment” allegation. Additionally, during one of my performance reviews under another manager I was told I needed to “toot my own horn” more – which is not something that I feel comfortable doing.
I know that I am one of many women who drop out of engineering. Studies show that about 40 percent of those going into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) jobs are women, but after about eight years over half move out of engineering to different careers.
Even though I did not want to go into engineering as a career, I think I might have stayed if the environment had been more welcoming.”
